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Intense Debate in Canada Over Longer Census

OTTAWA — In their fleeting summers, Canadians tend to prefer lakes and beer over political discussions. But a government decision to change Canada’s census law has started a heated debate and led to the resignation of the country’s chief statistician on Wednesday night.

The resignation of Munir Sheikh, who led Statistics Canada, was preceded by protests across the country’s ideological spectrum, including many who usually share the Conservative government’s views. If anything, his departure appears to have increased calls for the government to reverse its position on making a longer census form voluntary.

Next week, a House of Commons committee will hold special hearings on Parliament Hill, a place normally abandoned to tourists during July.

The government’s decision was not just unexpected, but it was also made without notice and in the absence of any obvious outcry against the census’ being excessively nosy. That has left many wondering why the government brought this on itself.

“I’ve had a lot of difficulty figuring it out,” said Roger Gibbins, the president and chief executive of the Canada West Foundation, a policy group with generally right-of-center views. “I live in a hard-core Conservative constituency in the heart of Calgary. There are probably more people worried about flying saucers’ landing in their backyard than there are worried about the long-form census.”

All Canadians are required to fill out a short census form every five years. Since 1971, a mandatory longer form has also been mailed to about 20 percent of households. That form for 2006 ran 40 pages long.

The government decided last month that completing the long form would be voluntary during next year’s census. To make up for the anticipated decline in responses, it will mail the long form to about 30 percent of households, a concept that some cabinet ministers later suggested was endorsed by Statistics Canada.

Once the change was finally noticed, economists, statisticians, local governments and many corporations swiftly asked the government to abandon it.

With few exceptions, they argued that a voluntary census response would create a skewed statistical portrait of the country. Evidence, much of it from the United States, shows that members of many groups — including the very poor and the very wealthy — do not fill out census forms unless compelled by law. The protesters also rejected the claim that mailing out more copies would overcome statistical deficiencies.

The federal government relies on census data to transfer money to Canada’s provinces each year for many programs, including health care. Its results are also used widely by the private sector.

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Federal politicians were initially slow to explain the reasons for the change. But over the past week, Tony Clement, the industry minister, said that the government was responding to privacy and coercion complaints.

“We do not believe Canadians should be forced, under threat of fines, jail, or both, to disclose extensive private and personal information,” Mr. Clement said in a statement.

The Canadian news media have had little success in finding many people with such concerns. In 2006 a small number of people refused to fill out census forms. But they were protesting the use of an American technology contractor.

But Maxime Bernier, a prominent Conservative member of Parliament from Quebec, told The Toronto Star that his office received about 1,000 complaints via e-mail a day about the census in 2006. He subsequently said those e-mail messages were deleted long ago.

Canada’s privacy commissioner received two complaints about the 2006 census, a spokeswoman said.

Kenneth Prewitt, the former director of the United States Census Bureau who is now a professor at Columbia University, said that the Canadian government had the power to make its long census form voluntary, even if the idea was not sound. But he was critical of Mr. Clement for suggesting that Statistics Canada finds the idea acceptable from a sampling standpoint.

“I wouldn’t call this political interference,” Professor Prewitt said. “I would call this government stupidity.”

Mr. Sheikh was more circumspect in a resignation statement, which appeared briefly on the Statistics Canada Web site.

“I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion,” he wrote. “This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census. It cannot.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2010, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In Making a Longer Census Form Voluntary, Canada Sets Off an Intense Debate. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe